Different market environments are conducive to certain scans and less so to others.
Coming off this perilous winter, strategies identifying short opportunities have been greatly rewarded. And, throughout the pandemic, it was the complete opposite.
Like we said in yesterday's note, half the battle is in understanding how to directionally position in the underlying trend. The simple fact of that matter is that many have been caught offside betting against names in substantial drawdowns.
Names like Coinbase, Marathon Digital, and, most recently, Silvergate have all sported notable short interest coming off this bear market.
Identifying this skew, we reintroduced our Freshly Squeezed scan. The idea is rather intuitive; we're simply looking for stocks that people are betting against. When a stock is heavily shorted, we know there are incremental buyers waiting in the wings.
As Strazza said in the latest Freshly Squeezed report,
It's been a minute since we've been able to say that, amiright?
But let's face it.
We're seeing these coins thrust to new quarterly highs, hitting overbought conditions in the process.
At its peak a few weeks ago, approximately 70% of our universe hit overbought conditions, while three-quarters of all coins reclaimed their 200-day moving average.
This is within the context of these coins coming off 80%, even greater than 90% drawdowns.
As we move into the middle of February, seasonality trends suggest a choppy couple of weeks ahead.
At the same time, momentum in the US dollar has accumulated in recent days, as we observe some mild selling pressure in crypto markets. With the CPI release on Tuesday, it's reasonable to expect this volatility to continue.
This comes as Bitcoin retraces following its first retest of the August 2022 highs.
They teach you this stuff at technical analysis kindergarten.
Buy support.
Sell resistance.
Of course, in the real world, with our primitive monkey brains, implementing this into a trading system is easier said than done. Just take a look at the squeeze you're seeing in real-time in all these beaten-up growth stocks.
The permabears started shorting these names in droves when they'd already slumped into 90% drawdowns.
Talk about a reckless strategy...
When we look at the most heavily shorted stocks, Coinbase stands out with a short interest of almost 30%. With clear levels and a favorable risk/reward, we leaned on COIN as a vehicle to profit from the short squeezes taking place in recent weeks. We're seeing them all over.
Seriously, go through some of these charts.
Carvana, Tesla, and AI are all great examples -- these moves are no joke. Bed, Bath & Beyond was up over 90% yesterday!
When people ask us what's been happening in the world of crypto, this is the chart we show them.
Bitcoin -- and crypto more generally -- has been a big nothingburger for over a year. Especially with Bitcoin trading below its prior cycle highs, there was absolutely nothing to be done in this asset class.
Another positive week -- add it to the growing tally!
This is the first time Bitcoin's been up for four consecutive weeks since August 2021. Similarly, Bitcoin's 14-day RSI eclipsed its highest level going back more than two years.
We have a name for this price action...
Momentum thrusts.
We see them all the time in the beginning stages of new trends.
There's no denying that this move has been impressive. In fact, we'd even argue that it represents a structural shift in this market.